


if you're so wise, why do you need crack?

by nebulousviolet



Series: aftg character studies [5]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Study, Multi, hinted parental neglect, lowercase abuse, warning for drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 08:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11733453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: a wise man once told matt that he had an addictive personality.





	if you're so wise, why do you need crack?

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from rent.  
> please bear in mind that in regards to timelines, i've probably messed up a little. for me, matt's always been one of the harder characters to write, so this isn't as long as my other studies.  
> as always, dedicated to hadia.

listen; a wise man once told matt that he had an addictive personality, that his niceness won't prevent him from getting hooked in. and matt had ignored him because matt had been sixteen, matt had been young, matt had had all the time in the world until he didn’t.

*

neil josten is weird, matt decides, but not because of the fact that he wakes up creepily early and that he only owns five sets of clothes. no, he’s weird in that his face slowly blanks whenever he’s invited to something, weird in that andrew’s eyes follow him around a room, weird in that he gives both everything and nothing at all.

but they’re roommates and teammates and matt doesn’t want to push him too far because it _takes one to know one_ and boys like neil don’t bend, they break entirely, the splinters cutting only cutting themselves. and neil seems to like him, seems to tolerate him more than he tolerates seth or allison or renee, anyway, and that’s something. matt can pretend not to see cracks and flaws in the mask of neil josten if that’s what makes him happy, even if he’s not pleased about it. after he was yanked into sobriety, he knows about compromises more than anyone else; he’s not an asshole.

“i worry about the new kid,” dan says one day, when they have the dorm room to themselves and they’re spread out on his bed, hands interlinked. she looks like a renaissance painting, tangled in sheets and her skin a warm contrast to the stark white. “he’s talented and works hard, but...you know.”  
yes, matt knows. the monsters are bad news, a quartet of unsmiling faces and powder and knives. nicky is different, but he always has been amongst them, a laughing mouth, a rainbow shirt, a flash of insecurity. people like aaron and andrew take the scraps of people and either ruin them or keep them. matt still doesn’t know which one they did to him.

the point is, they will chew a boy like neil up and spit him out, leaving the gory remains for them to deal with. but at least that way neil will know better, will know these animals will bite, will keep himself safe.  
“i think he’ll work something out,” matt replies, code only they know, and dan looks at him, hard. her irises are painted dark gold in the dim sunlight, and she bites down on her lip.   
“you’re right,” she concedes, and it’s out of their hands now.

*

neil is not neil, neil is nathaniel wesninski, a stranger wearing neil's face but with scars and hardened eyes and a set jaw. except he has somehow never and always been nathaniel, and matt is in enough betting pools to know when a bluff is being called, so he almost recognises the man he sees.

and then andrew runs to him and _oh_ , he gets it this time, he really does.

*

he’s seventeen, seventeen and addicted to drugs because his father offered him a syringe and _matt has an addictive personality_ and he said yes. he hides his track marks under expensive sweaters, under wristbands, under polonecks and button ups, because he is a new yorker and can wear warm clothes, no big deal. but one summer they go to puerto rico on vacation and matt wears a tank top and his mother looks at him, her eyes wide and disappointed, and his father shakes his head as if he didn’t know. he’s toddling off to rehab, a rich teen spiralling out of control, and matt knows deep down that this is not all his dad’s work, but what kind of father lets his child take drugs? he fights off the withdrawal with his arms around his knees and his chin up because he is matthew boyd and if he cannot do this then what the hell can he do?

*

when dan retires from exy, more to do with the fact that she’d rather coach than that she’s pregnant with their second child, she begins growing out her hair again. matt doesn’t notice, because he sees her every day, until neil skypes and sees dan in the background and double-takes.  
“is that dan?” he asks, frowning. matt knows andrew is probably listening to their whole conversation, but that’s fine. he’s fairly sure andrew has tabs on most of them anyway. “her hair is so long. i didn’t recognise her from behind at first.”

andrew makes some kind of dry comment in what matt assumes is german - he speaks so fast, it’s hard to tell - confirming matt’s suspicion that he’s listening in and making neil roll his eyes dramatically. he’s got quite a penchant for that, matt thinks fondly, and it hits him that he knows neil josten, neil who was meant to just be a name on a list of forged identities, enough to notice that. matt feels very old, all of a sudden.  
“it’s nice, though,” neil says abruptly, breaking his train of thought. “her hair looks more brown than black now there’s more of it. i guess i just thought she’d always have her hair short forever.”

 _things change_ , matt wants to say. he’s always been protective over neil; neil, who is like a brother to him. neil, who is called ‘uncle’ by his daughter and watches all of his matches (he knows because andrew complains about it whenever he sees him). they’re both adults now, and they’re all changing, all evolving, all no longer the broken foxes they once were.

or maybe it’s just hair. matt always got yelled at for using purple prose in english class.

“speaking of hair,” he teases, pointing accusingly at neil. “yours is suspiciously short, and you only cut it when it starts rivalling renee’s for length. what happened, dude?”  
“nicky hemmick scares me,” neil proclaims, his lips twitching in a grin, and matt laughs, because this is so _normal_ and they deserve this, the lot of them.

*

matt sleeps on renee, allison, and dan’s sofa for six months. it’s not worth it, in the end. his past catches up with him eventually.

*

 **meet me at this address** , neil texts, and matt has what he calls a ‘josten sense’ that makes him choose something a little nicer than usual to wear before he rocks up outside a juice bar. his unspoken question - why a juice bar? since when has neil liked fruit? - is answered when renee walks out with him. he hasn’t seen her in a while, but she shoots him an angelic smile because she’s renee as she climbs in the back, neil following her.  
“andrew pissed at you or something?” matt jokes, and neil quirks an eyebrow at him. he’s shotgunning, and he looks comically short in the car seat. next time he picks his best friend up somewhere, he’ll adjust the front seat, he decides.  
“kind of,” he says cryptically. “but that’s not why i need you. next stop, courthouse.”

 _ah_. matt understands straight away.

andrew and neil get married, sans rings or vows, at the city courthouse. afterwards, andrew gives neil a bored look, and throws his car keys at him.  
“hospital,” he says, as if that means anything to anyone other than neil. renee, who ended up being andrew’s witness, smiles to herself.   
“what?” matt asks, and he gets thrown a cool look by minyard in response. once upon a time, andrew minyard terrified him. honestly, he still does. but neil is their common denominator, which means they try not to fight around him. “why hospital?”

“they didn’t get married for no reason,” renee explains softly, her voice lilting in that way of hers. “andrew kept getting kicked out of the hospital for fighting doctors who wouldn’t let him in the icu because he wasn’t related to neil.”  
“he pulled a knife on a nurse once,” neil sighs. “he almost got arrested.”

that sounds like andrew and neil, alright.

and then it sinks in. matt saw their wedding. not aaron or kevin or nicky, but matt. and it’s not really that important - this is so andrew can stop threatening medical staff, after all - but it _is_ , because it’s neil and andrew. who would've thought they'd get this far?

he could almost cry.

*

matt swallows the pill dry. it sticks in his throat. _addict_. when is he going to get over this?

*

when matt learned to play exy, his first thought was, _wow_. his second was, _ow_.

he’s a backliner, and he’s damn good at it, even with the shakiness drugs like to give him. his high school is one of the best in the state, known for their strict point gap control on their half. for once, he is more than a rich surgeon’s son. he’s an athlete, a team player. his grades go up. he stops scrapping. he gets an exy scholarship to palmetto state, and he’s only seventeen.

then puerto rico happens. and exy is forgotten in favour of _clean_.

*

matt’s good with kids. he has two of his own - three year old david and five year old lily - and several ‘nieces’ and ‘nephews’, the children of ex-foxes like amalia, kevin and thea’s little girl, and the several impoverished children renee and allison adopted. so when he, too, retires from pro-league, this time because of an old knee injury that makes it hard to play full seasons, he knows what to do.

teaching elementary school kids a contact sport like exy is tough. they all want to hit each other with the racquet because they’re young and excitable. on his first day, he has to deal with three scraped knees and a sprained wrist. but it’s rewarding. sure, matt’s what he’d call a ‘good person’, but now he finally gets it.

so he starts volunteering after school, too. then some weekends. pretty soon he has a district exy club going, kids of every size and shape and colour going up against each other. it’s good, coaching. he understands why dan gave up a career she still had a decade left in for it. exy is where it all begins and ends, after all, when it comes to foxes.

maybe that’s why when matt sees neil slipping into the crowd one day, he says nothing.

*

“we need to talk,” he says to andrew minyard, who is currently smoking in his dorm room with the smoke alarm off. nobody else is there - kevin and neil are going over some kind of manoeuvre outside as their idea of fun, and nicky is, of course, in germany for christmas. andrew raises a single eyebrow at him, the most he’s ever really given matt directly, and he takes it as an invitation to continue. “about neil.”  
andrew’s face is perfectly blank.  
“what about him,” he says, flat. matt wonders how neil can understand anything about him when he’s completely expressionless. but neil defies most laws of logic, he supposes.

“i don’t know if you noticed, but neil’s my best friend,” matt reminds. “which means we gotta have some kind of...i don’t know, system or whatever, if he gets hurt. you’re not the only one who freaks out when he doesn’t come back from his runs, dude.”  
“go away,” andrew says dismissively, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. “i’ll talk about this later.”

matt kind of assumes andrew will never talk about it again, until he gets a text a few days after.  
 **whenever i can’t find him, i’ll tell you** , it reads. **you’re not completely useless, boyd**.

it just might be the nicest thing andrew has ever said to him. even if it is out of necessity.

*

“y’all, i have a bet,” allison announces. her smile is razor sharp like wire, and her lips are painted bloody red. “bets on neil being gay?”  
there is a unanimous chorus of ‘yes’s around her dorm room. she flashes her teeth, and collects in the money for the pot. allison thinks for a moment, collects herself, and glances at renee, before looking back at the money on the floor.  
“and bets on him being gay for andrew?”

 _andrew?_ matt thinks. that will never happen.

he bets against.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please please please comment and give kudos.  
> my last fic (not aftg) got zero comments, so can y'all make up for that?  
> follow me on tumblr for a cool mash up of aftg and broadway content: @vvorkangelica


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